Privacy Policy.

Who we are

Victoria Dental Clinic ("we", "us", "the clinic") operates a family dental practice at 910 Victoria Avenue East, Thunder Bay, Ontario. This policy explains how we handle personal information collected through this website. It applies alongside our in-clinic privacy practices under Ontario's Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) and Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

Privacy Officer. Our Privacy Officer (also our Health Information Custodian contact) is responsible for this policy and answers privacy questions and requests. Reach the Privacy Officer at 807-622-9848 or victoriadental2@gmail.com.

What we collect

Through this website we may collect:

• Appointment requests: your name, email, phone number, service type, and any message you include.
• Newsletter sign-ups: your email address, plus the date and time you gave us permission to email you.
• Automatic technical data: IP address and basic request metadata, used solely to prevent spam and abuse.

Please do not send medical or health details through this website. Our forms are for scheduling only. Describe symptoms, medications, and history by phone or in person, where we can protect them properly. Clinical health records created in-office are handled under our in-clinic privacy practices in accordance with PHIPA.

How we use it

• To contact you and schedule your appointment.
• To answer questions you send us.
• To send occasional clinic updates if you have subscribed.
• To protect our systems from abuse (rate limiting).

We do not sell your information. We do not use it for advertising or share it with third parties for marketing.

How it's protected

Website submissions are stored in a secure, access-controlled database used only by the clinic. Access is restricted to authorized staff, and information is encrypted both in transit and at rest. If you would like to know where your information is stored or which safeguards apply, ask our Privacy Officer and we will tell you.

If a privacy breach ever affected your information in a way that could cause you harm, we would notify you and, where required, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

Retention

• Appointment requests: kept up to 12 months, then deleted. If you become a patient, the relevant details move into your clinical file and follow PHIPA record-keeping rules.
• Newsletter emails: kept until you unsubscribe, or after 24 months of no engagement, whichever comes first.
• Spam-prevention data: discarded within days.

Your rights

You may, at any time:

• Ask what information we hold about you.
• Ask us to correct inaccurate information.
• Ask us to delete information (subject to legal retention rules).
• Withdraw consent for newsletter emails.

To exercise any of these rights, contact our Privacy Officer at 807-622-9848 or email victoriadental2@gmail.com.

We respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with how we handled your concern, you may contact the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (1-800-387-0073) for health information, or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (1-800-282-1376) for other personal information.

Cookies & browser storage

When you first visit the site you'll see a short notice explaining this. We use a small amount of essential browser storage only — nothing that follows you around the web:

• Consent preference. A single value in your browser's local storage (vd-cookie-consent-v1) so the notice doesn't reappear every time you return.
• Form security. Short-lived rate-limiting on the appointment and contact forms (keyed to your IP address) to prevent spam and abuse.
• Session stability. Standard technical cookies that keep pages loading correctly during your visit.

What we don't use: no advertising pixels, no Meta/Facebook pixel, no Google Ads, no TikTok pixel, no cross-site profiling, and no social-media trackers. We do not sell your information.

If we ever add analytics (for example, privacy-respecting page-view counts), this page will be updated first and the banner will be revised so you can make an informed choice.

You can clear the stored consent at any time by clearing your browser's site data for this domain — the notice will simply reappear on your next visit.

Changes

We may update this policy from time to time. The "last updated" date above will reflect the most recent change.

Contact

Victoria Dental Clinic
910 Victoria Avenue East
Thunder Bay, ON P7C 1B4
807-622-9848 · victoriadental2@gmail.com